Floods hit Western Washington hard

Dozens of roads closed, including passes and I-5 near Chehalis

By MIKE BARBER AND DEBERA CARLTON HARRELL, P-I REPORTERS

Published 10:00 pm, Wednesday, January 7, 2009

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Rescue workers evacuate residents from a flooded neighborhood along McCutcheon Rd. near Orting, Wash. Wednesday. The rapidly rising Puyallup River forced hundreds of people in the area from their homes. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren) less

Rescue workers evacuate residents from a flooded neighborhood along McCutcheon Rd. near Orting, Wash. Wednesday. The rapidly rising Puyallup River forced hundreds of people in the area from their homes. (AP ... more

Photo: / Associated Press

Floods hit Western Washington hard

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Floodwaters and avalanches shut down travel across Western Washington while thousands of residents fled rising rivers that reached historic levels before spilling over levees.

More than 30,000 people were told to leave their homes in the Puyallup River Valley on Wednesday afternoon, while floodwaters closed Interstate 5 south of Olympia, and the city of Tacoma declared a state of emergency in the face of flooding inundating most Western Washington river basins.

State transportation officials said Thursday morning they expected Interstate 5 to remain closed between Grand Mound and Chehalis with no estimate on when it would reopen, DOT spokeswoman Alice Fiman said.

"The best we can say is that we don't think it's going to be today," she said.

No detours were yet set up due to the closure of Snoqualmie Pass on Interstate 90. The pass was closed due to avalanches and slides caused by the weather and officials had no estimate on when it would reopen.

"I have no food. I have no water. I don't know where I am going to park for a few days if the road is closed that long," said Harjit Ball, a driver for Trican Transport, who was trying to deliver a load of paper products in his blue and white semitrailer from Surrey, B.C. He was supposed to be in Portland at 10 p.m., but was stranded at a freeway waystation.

About 200 residents in Carnation were alerted late Wednesday that fire crews were cut off from their homes due to flooded roads near the Snoqualmie River. The affected homes are located between Northeast 32nd Street and Southeast 3rd Street, east of the river, according to Eastside Fire & Rescue.

Dispatchers used a reverse-911 system to send a pre-recorded message to residents alerting them that there would be no responses to fire emergencies and that medical responses would be delayed.

Earlier Wednesday evening, the State Patrol and state Department of Transportation closed a 20 mile stretch of I-5 in Lewis County south of Chehalis between U.S. Route 12 and Grand Mound.

Near Fife at the same time, water was beginning to flow over a levee and onto the freeway shortly before 6:30 p.m., with the right lane of I-5 southbound covered with water and closed for about 1 mile near Fife, though traffic was allowed to move through.

As small creeks became raging rivers and saturated earth threatened to slide Wednesday, 60 roads were reported closed statewide in 12 hours. Mount Rainier National Park shut its gates because of flooding concerns. Amtrak stopped north-south rail service, and the National Guard was called out in Lewis County

The flooding made it virtually impossible to get to Portland from milepost 88 on I-5 because of flooding on the Chehalis River.

"It's unbelievable a whole interstate could shut down like this. Just unbelievable," said Jenny Smit of Seattle, who was headed to Portland on I-5 for a business trip. She was parked on the overpass at exit 79, looking at the rising floodwaters covering the southbound freeway lanes.

In addition to flooding, the tropical storm lashing the state caused all the state's major east-west mountain passes over the Cascades to close because of avalanche danger.

At Snoqualmie Pass before noon, an avalanche as wide as a football field thundered down the ski slopes, damaging eight houses, one severely. Two occupants with minor injuries were rescued and everyone else was evacuated.

In Orting, about 10 miles southeast of Tacoma, fire trucks powered through the streets with loudspeakers advising everyone to leave the town and surrounding valley, home to about 26,000 people. Sandbags were placed around many downtown homes and businesses as the Puyallup River neared record levels.

In Centralia, the state Transportation Department closed I-5 from mileposts 68 and 88, which was closed for days by flooding from the Chehalis River in 2007.

No estimates were given about how long the freeway could be closed in Lewis County and officials cautioned it could require patience, as engineers would need to inspect the roadbed and make repairs before any reopening.

The State Patrol and Transportation Department were plotting closure points through the night Wednesday while troopers were visually monitoring river levels. In the Seattle area, the main focus was I-5 near the Puyallup River bridge.

"Closing a major freeway in such a highly-populated, urban area is not something we take lightly," Assistant Chief Les Young of the patrol's field operations bureau said in a news release. "Our priority is to close the freeway early enough that we don't put anyone in harm's way."

Seattle, protected most of Wednesday by its "Olympic umbrella" rain shadow, by dusk was sloshing through rush hour. Some Madison Valley residents who have experienced past flooding reported standing water near their homes from the rainfall. In north Seattle, residents said they were monitoring creeks, small inner-city lakes and homes for possible flooding, but reported no problems.

Over the course of the day Wednesday, the weather service issued flood warnings for 19 rivers in Western Washington, including the Nooksack, Skagit, Snohomish, Cedar, Nisqually, Puyallup and Chehalis. As of Wednesday night, 22 were at or above flood stage.

Flood warnings remain in effect through Friday in 14 counties in Western Washington and six in Eastern Washington, while 25 emergency operations centers were opened across the state.

Warmer temperatures and heavy rains from a powerful tropical storm were melting snow that was dumped on the mountains during a weekend storm. Ten inches of snow melted in a 12-hour period at Snoqualmie Pass, about 50 miles east of Seattle, Haner said.

Rainfall totals for the 24 hours ending at 2 p.m. Wednesday included 6 inches at Marblemount in the Cascade foothills east of Mount Vernon; 4.70 inches at Glacier, near Mount Baker east of Bellingham; 4.59 inches at Paradise in Mount Rainier National Park, 3.63 inches in Olympia; and 1.64 inches at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

There were no immediate reports of injuries. A woman was rescued after being trapped briefly in a house that was hit by a mudslide and collapsed in Concrete, 70 miles northeast of Seattle. Town Fire Chief Rich Phillips said medics indicated the woman was OK.

In Orting, more than 20 people and a number of pets were rescued by boat.

Diane Knowles of Eatonville said the first three to be taken to safety were her 81-year-old father-in-law and her brother- and sister-in law, who in past flooding arranged for the family to bring rescue boats.

"It came up so fast this time, there wasn't really time to think about it," she said.

Downstream along the Puyallup, Haner said the forecast was for a crest at a record 34.5 feet at 4 a.m. Thursday and for extensive flooding along the river to the mouth at the Port of Tacoma.

To protect animals, livestock shelters were opened in Pierce County at Frontier Park, Puyallup Fairgrounds, Evergreen Presbyterian Church, and Prairie Ridge Community Center at Bonney Lake, while a pet shelter was at the Sumner Veterinary Center.

In Snoqualmie, a town in the Cascade foothills 26 miles east of Seattle, kayakers paddled in the street as city officials urged residents in the flood plain of the Snoqualmie River to leave before they became trapped.

June Garvin said she lived high on a ridge outside the danger area but wanted to help.

"The river came up so fast that for some people, sorry to say, sandbags aren't going to do a darn thing," Garvin said. "The water's going to get in if it wants to."